Of A Cold, Cold Heart [Jared/Jensen; PG-13]

[longerthanwedo]

Title: Of A Cold, Cold Heart
Author:longerthanwedo 
Beta: icelily01 
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 4,185
Pairing: Jensen/Jared
Warnings: Character death.
Disclaimer: I don’t own them.
Summary: Every day, Jared takes a picture. Captivation. Obsession. Drawn to a man he doesn’t know, a man shrouded in mystery, Jared loses sight of what’s real. His world turns, upside down and inside out, leaving him in the middle of a story he can’t escape. A story of dark and light and green, green eyes.

 

 

Every day, Jared takes a picture.

He wakes and he wanders streets in sun, sidewalks in rain. Every day, walking and waiting and watching, watching, always from the view of a lens.

It’s the man with the green eyes, the one he always finds. Ten minutes, never ten minutes of walking before he sees. The man, broad shoulders, hair soft and spiking. That shifting shine in his gaze.

Every day, Jared takes a picture.

Sometimes. Sometimes the man runs. Darting in and out and around buildings and cars. He slips through shadows and doors, always moving, never stopping, and Jared follows, finger on the shutter. Every day, he takes a picture.

Sometimes, when the man runs, the image blurs.

And Jared takes two.

***

He wakes before the sun.

He looks outside, the empty shaded road. Another day. They’re all the same, but Jared doesn’t mind, doesn’t even notice. Camera on the desk behind him.

He laces his shoes and zips his jacket.

Jared doesn’t know where the green-eyed man goes. He finds him – ten minutes – and follows, clicking away, but he doesn’t’ really see. He traces through streets but doesn’t read the signs. He ducks in buildings that are no more than that; spaces without function. The man talks to people; Jared watches. He doesn’t see their faces.

His eyes are glued to the man, the brown leather coat always walking away. This man; nothing else matters.

Jared watches from his shadows and he doesn’t know why. Something compels him, drives him, and all he can think about is this. This man and this camera. There’s no reason, no rationality, and Jared doesn’t wonder. He doesn’t need answers.

The green-eyed man pulls a gun from his jacket.

Jared snaps a photo and doesn’t see what happens next.

 ***

Sometimes, Jared’s not alone. Sometimes other people follow. They ride with shaded windows or jump from tree to tree. Today they follow just behind him, running with quiet feet. They don’t want to be seen.

They keep their hands in their pockets and their anger is tangible.

It’s directed at the green-eyed man, and Jared doesn’t like it. Doesn’t like them. They have suits and sunglasses and probably guns; they speak into radios and sing with sirens.

Jared stays close and stands tall. One person between them and green eyes. The man is fast, though. Through buildings, a maze of rooms. He knows the maze, knows it inside and out. Jared doesn’t.

He runs, quick as he can, but the cars run faster. Out of the maze and into sunlight, but Jared’s too slow. Those eyes are too slow.

Lights flash, wail. Surrounding.

They’re pointing guns, all of them, crouching by their blinking cars.

The man is trapped and Jared flinches, though no guns go off. They’re shouting words he can’t quite hear, and Jared can’t see the man’s face. Just his shoulders, the sharp movement of his arm as he fires. Bang from the gun, the green-eyed gun.

A suit falls and the man runs. Jared’s camera clicks, flash.

When he gets home, he slides into bed and forgets it all.

***

Jared doesn’t look at the pictures.

A pile of memory cards, dusty and glittering; they sit on his desk and he doesn’t pick them up. Doesn’t load, doesn’t look, doesn’t admire. He just lets them be.

He doesn’t know why.

***

A poster on the street tells Jared. It’s black and white, flapping in the wind, and he can’t see color. But it’s the same man.

The poster tells Jared, tells him in big bold letters. Green eyes has a name and his name is Jensen.

The poster says JENSEN ACKLES, the poster says WANTED, the poster says REWARD.

Jared doesn’t blink. He stops the breeze with his back and takes a picture.

***

Sometimes Jared feels like something’s watching.

Something, someone, somewhere; he’s not sure. It’s insubstantial and lingering, soft. Hanging just over his head, just behind his eyes.

When he looks through his camera, when he captures green-eyed Jensen within the frame, it feels like looking down. Watching from far away, removed, allowed only to see but never to know.

Sometimes Jared notices holes in his memory, gaps, fuzzy and washed away. Like someone blurred the photos, select ones, here and there. Sometimes he thinks he’s imagining it, and sometimes he’s sure it’s real. Sometimes those gaps feel like pain.

Jared’s not sure if he wants to look. Every time he gets closer. He’s not sure if he wants to see, to know what his mind hides.

Sometimes, Jared thinks he’s crazy. But then he thinks someone would have told him.

When wondering becomes too much, when he can feel that far away stare beating down on him; that’s when he picks up the camera.

Jensen, green eyes and brown leather. Jensen can make him forget.

***

When the cops are chasing, Jared doesn’t think.

Jensen runs and Jared runs with him, behind him, hearing the shouts but not caring, never caring enough to stop or to hide. He has his camera; can’t let green eyes out of his sight.

When the gunfire starts, Jared doesn’t hear. The wind in his ears, whistling, vibrating; that’s all he hears. That and his footsteps, his footsteps with Jensen’s. No bangs, no shots or screams, not even his own.

He doesn’t feel the pain of the bullet in his chest. Doesn’t feel the cold metal rip; rip right through skin and bone. Doesn’t feel the warm trickle or smell the blood, gushing. He can’t feel anything but the slip as his fingers loosen their grip and the camera falls to the ground.

He thinks no and he drops alongside it.

Green-eyed Jensen runs and everything fades.

***

Jared thinks I’m dead; he thinks it as a question.

He looks dead, sprawled in front of his own eyes. Bleeding, not breathing. He looks dead, but he doesn’t feel dead.

There’s a cold surface under his feet; cold, smooth, not carpet, not wood. And walls, walls on all sides, walls and a ceiling, monochrome and impeccable. Jared almost doesn’t see the doors lining the walls. They’re the exact same color, nondescript, invisible but for the lock in the center. Every single one.

Behind a door is a noise. Jared thinks it sounds like footsteps. One after the other. Behind that sound is a man.

For a moment, Jared hopes, but his eyes are blue, not green.

“Come with me,” he says. He doesn’t give a name.

There’s nothing to do but follow.

The walls of this room are the shapes of Jared’s world.

“We’ve got another follower now,” blue-eyes says. “You get to watch.”

It’s a slide show, three dimensional and wonderful. Jared can smell it, can taste it. He reaches out.

“You can’t touch.”

He lowers his hand. There’s a flash of green, right there, and he focuses.

“Yes, very good. That’s Jensen.”

Jared knows, Jared nods.

“He’s our target. Keep watching him. Never take your eyes away.”

Never have, Jared wants to say. Never will. Nod.

“Good.”

Blue eyes turns to go.

“Just one more thing.”

Jared doesn’t move his gaze.

“If he dies, scream.”

***

This is where the blurry photos go.

Jared stands in that room and he watches. Sun sets and sun rises and the pictures follow Jensen. Pictures from a camera that’s not his. Not anymore. This new camera takes his place, his place by green eyes. It walk and runs and stumbles. It captures and Jared sees.

Jared sees everything.

There are no gaps in this show, no moments of fog, of what and how. It’s all there, bright, white detail, and it should surprise him. Should shock, sicken, but it doesn’t. Jared watches with face blank and arms at his sides.

Green-eyed Jensen, his jacket and his gun.

Jared sees everything.

***

Snapshots that show him the truth.

Flash.

Jared watches from this new world.

Flash.

A building. Warehouse, empty metal boxes that stretch up, up. Green eyes shining.

Flash.

A girl, blue jeans; crouching, crying. Pleading.

Flash.

Jensen. Tall and calm and probably talking, but Jared can’t hear. Something in his hand, pulled from a pocket. Bright silver.

Flash.

She’s scared, cringing away with tears on her face.

Flash.

Green eyes smile, silver gleams. She drops with red.

Flash.

Jared can’t look away.

***

Jared doesn’t scream when green eyes glitter.

When Jensen wields his knife, his gun. He doesn’t scream when the people die. When they run, when Jensen whispers those words, those words he can’t hear. Words that make them cry.

Jared doesn’t scream when Jensen sets them up, sitting and staring with hands and legs crossed. Eyes wide open; blank.

He doesn’t scream when Jensen walks away with blood on his hands and a tiny smile on his lips.

Jared doesn’t scream when green eyes kills.

But when Jensen falls. When this new camera doesn’t protect him, doesn’t take the bullet. When those eyes slip shut.

That’s when Jared screams.

***

Like clockwork, he appears. The man with the blue eyes. He hears Jared yell and he pushes open the door, entering with long strides and a satisfied smile.

“Excellent,” he says, and Jared realizes he can’t stand and slides to the floor.

Is this it? Is this the end, the end of everything he’s done? His entire life, every minute, revolving around Jensen. The man that was somehow the center of his universe. The man that just died.

Jared knows his own life is over, his life on earth. But he could see it, before. He could see it on the screen.

Now he thinks he might really be dead.

The blue-eyed man is walking towards the screen and Jared watches without quite feeling. Detached, wondering what he’s doing. The man who reaches out his hand.

Jared’s not sure how it happens.

One second he’s on the ground, Jensen dead and so far away. The next, he’s shooting to his feet. Shocked, no words on his lips. And Jensen is right there. Tall and strong, shirt stained red, eyes the greenest green ever.

In that part of his mind that can think, Jared is a constant stream of questions. Of what and how and is this real. In the part of his mind that can think, he wants to know what’s happening. But that part, that functioning part of his brain is miniscule, insignificant.

Mostly, Jared just stares.

 ***

Jared was made to watch.

To observe, to listen, never to question. He followed Jensen, untouchable Jensen, and never looked past the mystery, never doubted his heart. That inexplicable pull, like green eyes were magnets, more powerful than anything. Drawing Jared in. He followed his instinct, right to the very last moment.

The second Jensen lands, feet firmly under him, he starts asking. Bombarding the man that pulled him here. Jensen yells in a commanding voice, yelling and swearing and, “How am I here when I’m clearly fucking dead?”

Jared watches, not sure if he’s comprehending this. This is him. This is the man. Untouchable Jensen, untouchable and right here.

“Who’s this guy?”

Green eyes turn, lock with Jared’s for the first time.

“I recognize him from somewhere.” Jensen squints. “Do I know you?”

All those years, watching but never meeting, never speaking. Jared doesn’t know what to say. But Jensen keeps going.

“Wait a minute. You’re that guy, the one with the camera.” He furrows his eyebrows, studies Jared, digs up an image from his memory. “You followed me. I never really noticed, because you didn’t have a gun. But yeah… yeah, you were always there.”

All the time he spent thinking about Jensen’s eyes, and Jared can’t read them now.

“Why are you here? Are you dead too?”

“Yes,” Jared says. He doesn’t say, I died right beside you only you didn’t see. You were too busy running. Doesn’t say, I would’ve done it again, for you.

“So what is this? Is it hell? Because when they told me I’d go there… it’s not what I pictured.”

Jared frowns and forgets for a moment. Years of blocking it out, and it sometimes slips his mind. Jensen’s a killer.

“It’s not hell,” says the blue-eyed man.

Jensen’s confused; more and more with every second, every word. Like he can’t believe, can’t believe he’s not burning. Somehow, that saddens Jared most of all.

“Not hell,” green eyes repeat. “But it can’t be heaven.”

“There are more worlds than yours,” the man says, low voice, full of unspoken words.

Jensen stares and Jared stares, and the man walks away.

The door swings shut, click.

***

Sometimes, Jared wonders what would happen. What would happen if he just reached out, reached out into the walls, into the color of his old life.

There are more worlds than yours.

Would he fall through? Would he be able to feel the air, smell it? See the sky and the grass and the cars again, right in the middle of it all. Would he live again?

Part of him wants to try. Feels his fingers itching, his heart longing.

I could go back.

But he doesn’t. Maybe he doesn’t want the disappointment of finding nothing but a solid wall. Doesn’t want it not to work, doesn’t want that hope taken away.

Or maybe it’s because Jensen doesn’t reach out.

You’re that guy, the one with the camera.

Jensen doesn’t look at the wall, doesn’t stretch out his hand when he thinks Jared isn’t looking. And Jensen, well. He was Jared’s life. Jared’s every day, his walking and his sleeping and his camera clicking.

Green eyes. Here, not there.

***

Jared realizes he doesn’t know what’s real.

Is he? Jensen? Those doors, the walls, the world, their deaths. Nothing is certain, nothing is solid.

All those rooms. Are they the same as this one? Do they all give a glimpse of the earth, the right world? Do they sit, empty, waiting to be filled, or are there others out there? Others just like him, like Jensen.

If Jared opened the door, would the hall still be there? Or would he step into emptiness, fall and fall.

If Jensen shot him with the gun in his pocket, would he die again, or just keep breathing? Is it really breath in his lungs? Blood in his veins?

For a moment, Jared can’t feel his heart beat.

Or maybe this is real, and that world on the screen was just a dream. Maybe he’s been here all along, just waiting to wake up. Sleeping, dreaming of green eyes.

In one fluid motion, Jared is across the room. Jensen snaps his head up to look, surprise in a frown on his lips. Jared closes his fingers in Jensen’s jacket, feels the leather, real as anything. The heat underneath. His fists against Jensen’s chest, solid.

This is real, this touch. Everything strange, everything foreign, wavering and evading his grasp. Everything but this.

He kisses Jensen, hard and quick, just because he can.

Real.

***

There are voices. Voices that Jared can only hear when the world on the screen goes dark. He’s not sure if he’s imagining. Night after night, he can’t make out the words; just murmurs in the air.

All in his mind until one voice cuts through the rest. Jensen’s.

“Hey. Do you hear that?”

Jared’s eyes snap up, meet his, still green and flashing in the dim light. He nods.

“I think someone’s talking…” Jensen trails off, gets slowly to his feet. “I can’t… I can’t make out what they’re saying.” Turn to Jared. “Can you?”

Jared, still sitting, shakes his head. He watches as Jensen steps up to the door, reaches out his hand. Something Jared’s thought of but never considered, not really. Jensen pushes, and Jared doesn’t mean to hold his breath.

It’s not locked; it swings open silently, smooth and light, and Jensen turns.

“You coming?”

Jared stands, nods again, and follows Jensen out the door.

***

“Another one?”

“Yeah. Just in time, too. Another week and…”

“I know, I know. But we’ve got ‘em now; that’s all that matters.”

“I guess so. I’m starting to get anxious, is all. It’s almost here.”

“Can you believe it? All those years… I was starting to think it’d never happen.”

“It was always going to happen.”

“Yeah. The coming storm. They told me stories when I was little.”

“I never believed those stories. Not until they brought me into the room and showed me what was happening. All those other worlds…”

“I remember being more frightened by the noises than the picture.”

“Me too. Heard it in my dreams for weeks.”

“And to think that we’re smack in the middle of it now.”

“At the top, I dare say.”

“Afraid so.”

***

Standing with his ear to the door, Jared’s fingers itch for a camera. Something to record, proof of the words spoken. But the camera’s gone.

It’s just his mind now.

***

“How’s the new guy doing? What’s his name – Jason? I can’t remember. The one with the green eyes.”

“Jensen. The serial killer.”

“That’s the one.”

“We’ve had our eye on him for years now; took him long enough to die. Was only a matter of time, though. He’ll pull the odds quite a bit in our favor, I think.”

“And his watcher?”

“Jared.”

“Right. Can we use him too?”

“I’m not sure yet. He doesn’t seem like the fighting type.”

“I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see.”

“Wait and see…”

***

Jensen’s pacing; has been since Earth’s sun rose.

 Jared sits and he watches, eyes following Jensen’s path. Back and forth, back and back and forth. Watcher; that’s what they called him, the two voices. It fits, he thinks. Watcher. It’s all I’ve ever done.

Jensen passes a hand through his hair, rubs tired eyes. He sighs, a frustrated breath. Jared can almost hear his mind whirring. Clicks and clacks and snippets of information. The two voices and the words they spoke.

Jared can’t comprehend. The men, one’s words low and scratching, the other’s higher and smooth. What they said, it wasn’t straightforward. Didn’t make sense, didn’t enter Jared’s mind in any kind of order. Intangible ideas, barely familiar. His mind aches with the thought of trying to piece it together.

So he doesn’t. He sits back and watches Jensen try instead.

***

It’s not long, three or four sunsets, before the door opens from the outside. The blue eyed man. Before he can speak, Jensen’s there. Taking his shoulders and shoving, slamming him up against the screen with a thump.

There’s a gun in Jensen’s hand.

“You’re going to tell me what the hell is going on.” Jensen’s voice is low, ominous. Commanding.

The man is calm, eerily still, blinking at Jensen. Not a trace of fear in his eyes.

“I don’t know what will happen if I shoot you, but I’m guessing it won’t be fun.”

The man’s face doesn’t change.

“What is this place? What’s this… coming storm? Why am I here?”

“It’s another world.”

Only then does Jared recognize him; one of the voices.

“What do you mean another world? How did I… how did we get here?”

“You’re here to help us.”

Jensen’s eyes are livid, sharp and bright.

“You take me into another world and you expect me to help you? What possible use could I have to you?”

The man stares, calculating.

“Yours is not the only world at war.”

***

Jared finds that it’s easiest to look at Jensen when his eyes are closed.

When the screen is dark, when there’s no green to pull him in. Those eyes, eyes that capture and never let go.

When they’re shot, Jared looks. Long eyelashes on cheeks, shadows and freckles that Jared can’t see in the night. Soft lips that could be smiling. A peace, a quiet. No questions, no anger. Looking at him, Jared would think he had never seen death.

He thinks back, back. Years of walking and watching, of finally meeting, of kissing in a moment of energy, realization. He wants it again; that shock, electric twist of his gut.

Here. In the middle of a war, something so big, so much bigger than him, vast and foreign and dangerous. All he wants is to touch. To ground himself with feeling, with something tangible, new.

He doesn’t mean to reach out but he does, one finger a ghost against Jensen’s skin, soft and just barely there.

And then they’re back. The greenest green, even with no light for the color to catch. Inches away from those eyes, Jared doesn’t move. Neither does Jensen.

Those lips are just how Jared remembers, warm when they touch his. Nervousness melts away. His limbs are liquid tension, heat and fire, alone in this room, in this strange new place.

It’s warm comfort, this kiss, burning away fear with feeling, making Jared forget. Forget death, forget war, forget guns and bang, banging bullets. He forgets it all and lets himself be lost, lost in this.

Something that he shouldn’t love but does.

Jared lets his eyes slip shut.

***

Sometimes Jared hears noises.

They bounce off the walls and squeeze through a crack under the door. Loud, crashing sounds, big and violent. They make his ears pop.

Sometimes there are shouts along with it. Yells that get lost in the din and fade into space so that Jared isn’t sure he heard them at all.

The cries sound like pain.

Sometimes people knock on their door. Pull it open a crack and peer in, asking questions that Jared can’t remember. It doesn’t seem important.

Sometimes Jared sleeps, but he usually can’t. He curls around Jensen instead, succumbs to distraction and lets it carry him away.

One time, the blue-eyed man comes, looks in, looks out, and speaks to someone Jared can’t see.

“He’s ready.”

***

Two sunsets later, the man takes Jensen away.

“Where are you going?”

The man says nothing, but Jensen gives Jared a last longing look, says, “I’ll be right back,” and disappears.

For the first time in forever, Jared is completely alone.

***

Jared waits and Jensen doesn’t come back.

Day passes on the screen and the noises keep coming but none of them are footsteps. He listens anyway. Listens and thinks.  Jensen. He eyes and his lips. He keeps his gaze on the door.

Then the world goes dark. Not sunset dark, not the dull grey of night, but black. Pitch black. Jared can’t see the door now.

One, two minutes Jared counts before there’s light again. It comes from only one of the walls, and the light’s not bright, but a warm deep brown. First a blur, and then he sees. A sea of people, tightly packed in a room that seems to stretch on and on and never stop. There’s no ceiling, no sky.

They look confused, turning their heads this way and that. Questions run through Jared’s mind.

Slowly, the crowd moves. The first row, forward until they disappear from view. As they move, their eyes change. The confusion diffuses, replaced with a hard light. A glint of anger, of resolve. In lines of ten or twelve, they move.

A unity develops, like they’re seeing the same thing, feeling, thinking together. A march.

An army.

Five more lines disappear, and there he is. Jensen, standing tall and shoulders squared, hand on his gun. His eyes are green, green, green, and when he turns they lock with Jared’s. Green stare, straight at him, straight through. And Jensen marches.

Jared wants to turn away, but can’t. Not until he’s gone.

***

It’s dark, dark, dark. The picture on the screen is gone, and Jared realizes he’s falling. Falling fast, straight down, but there’s no air, no wind. Nothing. Nothing but the black.

Jared squeezes his eyes shut and waits to hit bottom.

***

He wakes before the sun.

He looks around, the blank white walls. A beep, beep, beep. They’re all the same, the same sharp sound, but Jared doesn’t mind, doesn’t even notice. Camera on the table beside him.

He raises his head.

Jared doesn’t know where he is, how he got there. He hears voices, somewhere close by.

“Chest wound, but he’s stable. He’ll be fine. The other one, too.”

 He traces through memories, but finds only dreams. He feels a room, feels darkness and falling and he shudders. He doesn’t want to remember. The people are talking; Jared doesn’t really listen.

His eyes find another bed. The same beeping machine, and a man. Eyes the greenest green ever.

 Nothing else matters.